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Martin A. Sklar - Vice Chairman & Principal Creative Executive, WDI

Martin A. Sklar, vice chairman and principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), has worked for The Walt Disney Company continuously since 1956.

From September 1987 to May 1996, when he was promoted to vice chairman, Sklar served as president of the Imagineering subsidiary, the Disney organization responsible for the creation and expansion of the company’s theme parks and a variety of new Disney creative initiatives. In May 1996, when the Disney Development Company (DDC) and WDI were combined into one organization, he was named to his present responsibilities. Sklar became an officer of WED Enterprises (as Walt Disney Imagineering was then called) in 1974, when he was appointed vice president, Concepts/Planning, a role in which he guided the creative development of Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. In 1979 he became vice president of Creative Development; in 1982 he was appointed executive vice president, and in 1987 became Imagineering’s president.
As vice chairman, Sklar provides leadership for the Imagineering creative staff, which is charged with delivering breakthrough entertainment concepts for Disney’s theme parks and attractions. Today, Imagineering is responsible for every project, from idea through field construction, that goes into the present Disney theme parks (Disneyland in California; the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida; Tokyo Disneyland in Japan; and Disneyland Paris in France) and future projects for each, including Disney’s California Adventure adjacent to Disneyland; Tokyo DisneySea, adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland; and Disney Studios Paris, opening adjacent to Disneyland Paris in 2002.
Imagineering is also responsible for the creative development of ideas and concepts for many other new Disney initiatives, including projects for Regional Entertainment (see DisneyQuest, opened in 1998 at Walt Disney World Resort, and in 1999 in Chicago), new flagship stores for The Disney Store (see the 5th Avenue Store in New York City), design and construction of the Disney Cruise Line ships, creation of Disney resort hotels (designed by world-famous architects), ideas for Disney sports initiatives, and many more.
Sklar originally joined the Disney organization for a brief stint a month before Disneyland opened in July 1955. At that time, he was a student at UCLA, recruited by former Disney Chief Executive Officer E. Cardon Walker, while Sklar was serving as editor of the Daily Bruin student newspaper. Returning to finish his senior year after Disneyland’s first summer, he graduated from UCLA and took a position as assistant news editor of MAC (Media Agency Clients) Publications, a leading advertising trade journal.
In September 1956, Sklar returned to Disneyland, where he assumed responsibility for most of the park’s publicity and marketing materials, including the establishment of the highly successful Vacationland magazine. Joining WED Enterprises in 1961, he was part of the team assigned by Walt Disney to develop industry-sponsored shows and pavilions for General Electric, Ford, Pepsi-Cola/UNICEF and the State of Illinois at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
During the late 1950s and 1960s, until Walt Disney’s death in 1966, Sklar wrote personal materials for the “Showman of the World,” for use in publications, television and special films. These included a 20-minute film devoted entirely to communicating Walt Disney’s visionary concepts for the Epcot project.
“Working with Walt Disney was the greatest ‘training by fire’ anyone could ever experience,” Sklar says. “Our training was by Walt, who was always there pitching in with new ideas and improving everyone else’s input, like a master chef brewing a new recipe. The fire was that we were constantly breaking new ground to create deadline projects never attempted before in this business. That, I’m proud to say, has never stopped in my more than 40 consecutive years at Disney.”
In addition to his concepts and writing contributions for Disney theme park shows, Sklar has written and produced films, television shows and major presentations communicating Disney projects to the public, industry, government and professional organizations.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, Sklar was Imagineering’s primary strategist in relations with American industry in the development of sponsored attractions for Disneyland and the Walt Disney World theme parks, with emphasis on Epcot. Corporations now participating in Disney’s U.S. parks include many of America’s leading companies: AT&T, American Express, Coca-Cola, Exxon, Federal Express, General Motors, Kodak, Nestle USA and MetLife, among others.
“I have been truly blessed to spend almost my entire career working with the creative talent of Walt Disney Imagineering - artists, designers, architects, engineers, writers and many other disciplines. Just coming to work has been an exciting new adventure every day. Today, with Michael Eisner providing the corporate leadership, Disney has to be one of the most exciting places in the world for creative people. The opportunities for growth - both personal and corporate - are enormous. We are ‘dreamers and doers’.”
Sklar has been a featured speaker at art, design and recreation-related conferences, among them the American Institute of Architects annual convention, the Art Directors Club of Boston, the American Association of Museums, the Annual Conference of the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the National Recreation and Parks Association Convention, the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, the Southeastern Museums Conference, the annual IAAPA Panel on Entertainment, Cal Poly Pomona’s Advanced Management Executive Series, the UCLA Extension Conference - “Business and Design Issues in Themed Entertainment” and Stanford University’s Law School, where he traveled many times for a dialogue with a graduate class in business. He has also spoken to gatherings of key executives from Exxon, IBM, Ford and other companies, and is a popular speaker at such Disney “fan clubs” as the annual Disneyana Convention and the National Fantasy Fan Club (NFFC).
“Our guests in the Disney parks - and the audiences I speak to - respond to what I call ‘Mickey’s Ten Commandments’: the do’s and don’ts of Disney creativity and communications as I understand and practice them after 40 years of ‘training by fire’.” Before moving to Los Angeles in 1986, Sklar was twice elected (1969 and 1973) to the Board of Education of the Anaheim (Calif.) City School District and served two terms as board president. He was also elected to two terms as president of the Orange County (Calif.) School Board Association; was an Anaheim City Commissioner (Parks and Recreation and Cultural Arts Commissions); was the founding chairman of the “Michael L. Roston Creative Writing Awards,” an annual competition sponsored by the Anaheim Public Library; and was the 1977 recipient of the “Community Service Award for Anaheim,” presented by Cypress College.
In the 1990s, Sklar was honored in July 1995, as a “Disney Legend” by the National Fantasy Fan Club; and in September 1995, became only the second recipient of the “Lifetime Achievement Award” presented by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). Sklar also served two terms on the Board of The Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, Inc., formed to create “Space Center Houston,” which opened in October 1992.
He has been married to his wife Leah since 1957. They have two children: Howard, who recently completed his master’s degree at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and is currently teaching and living with his family in Helsinki, Finland; and Leslie Sklar Dahan, a former story analyst in the motion picture industry who lives with her family in Los Angeles. They also have four grandchildren. Mrs. Sklar has also served in the community, most notably as a member of the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women, including two years as its chairwoman.
Most recently, the Sklars have been instrumental in creating the Ryman Program for Young Artists, named in honor of the quintessential Imagineering artist Herbert D. Ryman, who created the first visual depiction of Disneyland for Walt Disney. The Ryman Program is a project of the Ryman-Carroll Foundation, which Sklar serves as President. Its purpose is to teach “traditional” drawing and painting skills to talented young artists in Southern California. The program, filling a void in public art education, is now in its ninth year and continuously serves more than 100 high school artists with wide-ranging ethnic and cultural diversity. For 1994 and 1995, a Ryman Program student was selected to receive the Governor’s Award as the Outstanding Student Artist in the State of California. Extending their commitment to young talent, the Sklars have established the annual “Martin and Leah Sklar Scholarship for Ryman Program Graduates” at CalArts, in Valencia, California.

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